Faculty
Stephen Bruyant-Langer

Course Coordinator
Richard Jones

The course builds on the core concepts presented in the courses on Strategic Brand Management and Marketing Communication and it applies them in the context of corporate communication. The course challenges the student to consider more traditional concerns of brand management in the context of the demands of multiple stakeholders.

Corporate Communication examines the complex relationships between the organisation’s internal and external communication in relation to the creation of the corporate brand. The major challenge facing the corporation today, be it public, private of not-for-profit, is to coordinate and integrate internal and external communication. Considerations of transparency, social responsibility, good corporate governance and financial performance all place challenges on the management of the company’s communication. The corporate brand manager needs to be able to assess the contribution of all of the company’s communicative activities to shareholder and stakeholder value. These challenges are the focus of this course.

The course aims to give the student an understanding of the nature of corporate communication today and tools necessary to assess the value of successful corporate communication strategies in relation to the corporate brand. Corporate branding brings together the organisation’s (as sender) market orientated and internal communication through specific focus on the organisation’s stakeholders (as receivers). The course provides the student with a both conceptual and practical understanding of corporate identity, image and culture and examines how these are used and interpreted by the organisation and it’s many stakeholders, including: employees, customers, competitors, suppliers, government, media and pressure groups.

The course is built up around theories of corporate culture, identity and image. It examines these in terms of their relation to internal and external stakeholders and compares traditional concerns of organisational theorists and marketing theorists to build an understanding of the role of corporate branding for the organisation today. Concepts of corporate reputation, value based leadership, identity and image are discussed in relation to the management of the corporate brand. The student is also introduced to the basic models of communication in order to develop an understanding of the ways in which messages are sent and interpreted by the organisation’s various stakeholders.

An individual mini project exam (15 pages). The project forms the basis for the evaluation.

Lectures, student presentations, group discussion, case work.

Theory is supplemented and discussed through a series of cases examining the implementation of communication strategies at the corporate level. Guest speakers from industry are invited to give their views and to provide input to the cases.

Indicative literature
Cornelissen, Joep (2004). Corporate Communications: Theory and Practice
Balmer, John M.T. & Greyser, Stephen A. (2003). Revealing the Corporation: Perspectives on identity, image, reputation, corporate branding, and corporate-level marketing. London: Routledge.